Then visit the PayPal Tools page and read about each product to see which one you need. There's also a tool to help you decide, and you can watch videos about them on the training and tutorials page.

At this point, you probably want to read the Apps 101 page. It explains how you make apps that use PayPal to process payments.

Finally, go to the main page for whichever product you're going to use, and start digging into the documentation and the SDK.

Other Helpful Notes

Some other things confused me, so here is what I've learned. Please correct me if I'm wrong and I'll keep this updated.

2 Kinds of PayPal Apps - Most of us are just using PayPal to process payments. But now PayPal has a new kind of app you can develop, and it's referred to as a PayPal App - confusing, right? This new kind runs on PayPal to augment PayPal's features.

03/10/2011

What if there was a software platform where it helped you start a business?

Let's say you're a handy-man, and you know a lot about fixing stuff, and you're ready to start your own business doing it. But you don't know anything about starting a business and you are worried about the risk involved in it - losing money, getting into debt, getting into legal trouble.

So we could make a software package that you drop onto your desktop, and it guides you. You tell it "I want to start a business", and it asks you what kind. Then you tell it, and from there it starts prescribing different options to you to help you get started. Once you do get started, then it also helps you take care of the business issues, like accounting and legal issues. It would be sort of similar to a workflow/business logic system.